Elara approached the blue stone on the table. Lucien's presence was waiting inside the stone. "You think you are giving this test to us," she said.
Lucien's voice did not come immediately. Then he spoke calmly. "The border is mine."
"But the choice is mine," Elara said.
With that sentence, the orange light widened all at once. The eyes of the portraits on the walls seemed to turn toward her at the same time. For the first time, the house seemed to be answering not Lucien, but Elara. When Kael saw this, he held his breath. Rowan, under the blue line, felt the bond his own blood had formed with the border. For the first time, Lucien's silence did not feel like complete control. It felt more like the silence of someone calculating.
